Environmental and Cultural Stressors in the Coastal Northern Maya Lowlands in Pre-Hispanic Times

Tropical coastal environments expose individuals to a wide array of stressful conditions, but at the same time are supposed to grant settlers a qualitatively richer and more varied diet. The present study analyzes caries and linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) in two Classic Period (CE 250–750) coastal sites (Jaina and Xcambo), located in the Yucatan peninsula’s northern coastline, in comparison with inland sites. The analysis reveals the absence of a clear pattern, showing high levels of caries and LEH both in Xcambo and in more inland sites, in contrast to lower levels of such stressful indicators at Jaina and in other sites located in the interior of the peninsula. Archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence rules out that social status and wealth, as well as sample composition by sex, or by age at death, can be at the base of such differences. Results, instead, highlight the concept that well-being is the result of the entangled and intertwined interaction between the environmental, biological, and cultural factors that shaped each and every human community.